Don’t Forget to Be Light

Copyright © 2022 Amelia Homewood.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

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brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6435-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6434-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-6436-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022906966

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/26/2022

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction   The Background

Chapter One   Dad

Chapter Two   Mom

Chapter Three   Here We Go

Chapter Four   The Drowning

Chapter Five   The Hot-Headed Teenager

Chapter Six   The Inspiring Best Friend

Chapter Seven   The Boyfriend

Chapter Eight   The Baby

Chapter Nine   Alone

Chapter Ten   Marshall

Chapter Eleven   The First Daughter

Chapter Twelve   Mackenzie

Chapter Thirteen   The Accident

Chapter Fourteen   The Viewing and the Funeral

Chapter Fifteen   The Cabin

Chapter Sixteen   The Viewing and the Funeral—Again

Chapter Seventeen   Permanence

Chapter Eighteen   The Pandemic

Chapter Nineteen   The Dark Years

Chapter Twenty   Applied Principles

Chapter Twenty-One   Sisterhood

Chapter Twenty-Two   The Phoenix

Let the Credits Roll!

For Riese.

THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS BELIEVING IN ME. I KNOW YOU

ARE ALWAYS WITH ME. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN.

PREFACE

The title for this book was chosen with specific intent. Be light in all you do.

Be lighthearted. Walk with childlike joy. Do not let the inevitable external forces of life weigh you down. If they do, I pray you find that love and bravery deep down inside you, to start over and allow yourself to be the light of your own life again.

Let me tell you all my story.

Why should you care? Valid question.

I suppose it’s open to interpretation. You will find a lot of dark things in this book—countless compound trauma, a few deaths, and an unplanned teenage pregnancy of a girl who had the world at her feet. You will also find the story of a woman who overcame countless obstacles and created a life worth living. They say we all have a story within is—our own.

Allow me to share mine with you.

I promise you will not regret reading this.

INTRODUCTION

The Background

I was born into a nonconventional family. But if I am going to tell my story, I suppose I must start from the beginning.

My dad was born in Olongapo, Philippines. He was one of five siblings. They were impoverished, living in a Third World country with no promise for their future. My grandma was a single parent of four, struggling to provide for her children, and was introduced to my grandfather, a Navy SEAL based on her island.

My dad, one of the most handsome and charismatic humans you could ever meet in your lifetime, had a lot of demons. He grew up in a Third World country with limited resources. He told me stories of days when there was barely any food. He said once that he was walking past a house and was so hungry that he watched through the window as the family ate rice. These demons inevitably caused him to struggle with addiction. When I was a child, he would get drunk and talk about his past. He had a brother there still, and I know it bothered him that he never had the chance to come to America.

He used to get drunk and tell me the story of the night they left the Philippines. He said he and his siblings had been sleeping on the floor, his brother on his arm. He said to his brother, We’ll be back, okay? Obviously, that did not happen. It was a dark demon my dad carried around for years, and I am positive he still does.

My grandma was a strong woman who would do whatever it took to get her family out of there. I cannot pretend to know why my dad’s brother did not come with them. We only ever know what others choose to share with us, and my grandmother took this one with her to the grave.

My mother, a strikingly kind and beautiful woman, was born and raised in a small town that never did her any favors. A funny truth about small towns is that most of us who live in them have known the people there from the time we were children. We have seen them in most phases of their lives, and unfortunately, we know every last detail about them. At least, most people think they do. We have seen them make life-altering decisions and pubescent mistakes based on hormones and impulses. We have seen them make mistakes as children, teenagers, and adults. It is easy to assume you truly know a person based on what you have heard about them. However, that is rarely ever the case, and some small towns do not easily offer grace and acceptance when you have grown.

My mother was also raised by a single parent, who, like my father’s mother, had experienced generational poverty and trauma. My parents met when my dad moved to the town from Houston, Texas. They fell into that wild teenage love when they were sixteen, and they had my sister. Four years after, I arrived. Why is this important? Because, as you can imagine, since both came from generations of unresolved issues, together, they combined to create one of the most traumatic households I have ever witnessed.

They say misery loves company, and though I would never describe my parents as miserable humans, I know they had deep sorrow between them that connected them in ways only they understood—two wonderfully mysterious humans bonded by trauma.

To summarize, I grew up in a household surrounded by addiction, trauma, and abuse. Before I go any further, let me say, this is just my story. I did not write it to highlight the negative aspects of my life (as I perceive them) but to show how I overcame numerous inevitable life-altering circumstances for the better and made the conscious effort to break multiple generational curses.

My childhood was filled with partying, drinking, drug use, and many lost souls coming together in a group that was so magnetic that they mistook their codependence for meaningful connection. I suppose some of them did have meaningful connections; only they know. However, it was not healthy. There were nights when the drinking got so bad, full-blown fistfights would erupt between my dad and his friends, my dad and other people’s friends, my mom and her friends, my mom’s friends and my dad’s friends, random people at the bar—you name it.

I once watched five guys jump my dad in a bar parking lot and knock out his front teeth. Yes, I was at the bar with them, and at only nine years old. Sometimes, my parents would get into fights so violent, I thought one or both would end up dead. My parents had a hot-and-cold marriage most of my life. Things would be peaceful for a little while, and then something would happen, and they would split up again. We would get woken up in the middle of the night and go stay with relatives for days, sometimes weeks, before ending up back home. Other times, we did not go home and moved completely.

When I was around eight years old, one of these party fights came to its inevitable fatal conclusion, the accidental stabbing of my dad’s best friend. I do not remember the details of the incident; however, I remember hearing the news and being devastated. I watched my dad, my mom, and her best friend, who had been dating this man at the time, crumble around me. This happened to be a high-profile court case in my hometown, which, thank God, resulted in a guilty conviction. My cousin Riese and I authored a short story about it, which was later featured on the news. This friend, an uncle, would be the first, but unfortunately not the last, of my life’s many tragic losses.

There were times when I would be up listening to screaming, fighting, and loud music until the early hours of the morning. Then, I would go to school and pretend everything was fine. It was not fine. I was no scholar. I was always tired, anxious, and worried about what would come next. I was always smart, but I lacked the resources to focus, which success requires. Perhaps you’ve heard of the theory of motivation, based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom are basic needs such as rest, security, and safety. I did not have those. If you do not have even these basic needs met, you hardly have a foundation for success.

I have heard and read so many stories about children from toxic households. Let me tell you what makes my story peculiar. Usually, these children struggle with trauma for the rest of their lives; they are sent out to navigate this big, scary world with almost no life skills because their parents did not have them either. It is a massive generational disappointment. The moment I stopped being bitter toward my parents for all the things that happened to them